Blu Ray file system on DVD-R media ?

[HDVguy]

I am an amateur videographer. With todays HD cameras and a high-octane home PC I can make stunning 1080p output almost as good as commercial HD footage. I am however on a budget. Blu Ray writers are still $$$$ and blank BD media is almost as bad. Consumer Blu ray players however are getting comparatively cheap.

Nearly all of my HD short films are way less than the size of a standard DVD-R. As most Blu Ray players will read this media I started thinking about authoring a BD file system in DVDA and then writing the files to a DVD-R.

So my question is... Will a standard Blu Ray file system, when written to a DVD-R, be interpreted correctly as a BD movie by the Blu Ray player?

Anybody tried this ?

[jman98]

What you want to do is called AVCHD. Some BluRay players support this, like the PS3. Others do not. It varies from player to player.

The format was originally designed to support HD camcorder video on DVD discs. Since the AVCHD disc doesn't have to be camcorder video per se, some people realized that it was possible to rip BluRay discs and re-encode them down to fit on DVD media. Hollywood can't be happy about this, but the manufacturers are stuck because if they drop support for AVCHD, the people who bought camcorders and were promised they could watch those videos in HD on their BluRay players will be angry. But it's my understanding that AVCHD is not officially part of the BluRay standard so Hollywood may start putting pressure on manufacturers to not support it "to stop piracy". That would be a worst case scenario, but given how difficult it is anywhere in the world to find region free DVD players now, I can't rule this out. So while AVCHD works now, it may or may not work in the future.

[ntscuser]

What you want to do is called AVCHD.

Or it used to be. The latest version of tsMuxeR has separate options for creating "Blu-ray" compliant discs and "AVCHD". The "AVCHD" option no longer creates a "Certificates" folder which I suspect may hinder playback on some Blu-Ray platforms?

[jman98]

Thanks for the info ntscuser. It's good to know about a potential problem.

[poisondeathray]

There is a database started on Doom9 forums which lists models of players and their compatibility for the different formats. i.e. avchd vs blu-ray on dvd5/9 , bd25/50, and quirks or limitations of the specifc model. Feel free to add your experiences with your particular model. So far this list is aimed at h.264 content, not mpeg2 content such as from hdv cams (which can also work, but technically isn't AVCHD )

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146339

[ntscuser]

There is a database started on Doom9 forums which lists models of players and their compatibility for the different formats. i.e. avchd vs blu-ray on dvd5/9 , bd25/50, and quirks or limitations of the specifc model. Feel free to add your experiences with your particular model. So far this list is aimed at h.264 content, not mpeg2 content such as from hdv cams (which can also work, but technically isn't AVCHD )

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146339

Thanks for that poisondeathray. It appears that the players for which my discs are intended prefer the "create AVCHD" option in tsMuxeR to "create Blu-ray". I would have guessed the exact opposite myself

[HDVguy]

Guys, thanks for the info.... I am getting the drift of the problems & issues. I have created a 3 minute HD movie in .m2v format with an .ac3 soundtrack. Both streams are accepted by DVDA and it successfully created an ISO for a BD disk.

I burnt the ISO to a DVD5 using nero and tried it on an (allegedly) compatible BD player in a store. It quickly announced that it recognised the disk as a DVD, but then failed with 'Unrecognised disk format' message. The player in question was a Panasonic DMP-BD30 which from the Doom9 list is completely compatible.

Moving on to the TsMuxer output.... It is almost identical to the contents of the ISO produced by DVDA, the 600mb stream file is about 40 bytes smaller from DVDA compared to the TsMuxer output stream. The TsMuxer settings for BD/AVCHD output identical sized streams. The only difference is between the two settings is the addition of Auxdata+BDJO+JAR in Blu ray which are all empty.

Given that my original stab at the Blu ray structure was probably correct, how should I be convincing a player to regard this as a readable disk? Am I missing something basic here ? Should I burn the files to disk more fundamentally in Nero rather than just burning the ISO? What disk format? UDF?

[poisondeathray]

UDF 2.50

[jman98]

poisondeathray beat me to it. BluRay formats require UDF 2.50.

If you are using Windows and it's older than Vista, you may need a UDF driver for version 2.5 and above if you want to be able to see the contents on a PC. Here's a link to a free one:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/UDF_Reader
This driver works very well under XP and may even work under Windows 2000.

[poisondeathray]

Just wanted to re-iterate, that list on Doom9 is for h.264 content, not mpeg2 . The player might "expect" blu-ray settings instead of "avchd" or vice-versa

You might want to check the hdv forums e.g. hv20.com for compatibility lists /settings using mpeg2 and tsmuxer . Search for posts by "racer-x"

[ntscuser]

Just wanted to re-iterate, that list on Doom9 is for h.264 content

I'm a complete novice to HD so does that include x264 as well? Media info says the source file is AVC.

[Baldrick]

x264 is a h264 encoder so yep. avc=h264.

[ntscuser]

x264 is a h264 encoder so yep. avc=h264.

Thanks Baldrick

[HDVguy]

As I find solutions, other problems appear. As suggested I looked at www.hv20.com and found this quote:

Burning HD Video on DVD

1.) Use TSMuxeR (free) and choose the "Create Blu-ray Disk" option.
2.) TSMuxeR creates 3 folders, BDMV, Certificate and Audio. This structure is an AVCHD "wrapper" that contains Blu-ray authoring of mpeg2 video inside of it.
3.) Use Nero or ImgBurn to burn the folders onto regular UDF 2.5 DVD5/9 disk.
4.) On the PS3, enable 24hz HDMI Output under BD playback options.
5.) Insert the disk. It should autoplay 1080p24.

or...

You can just burn an actual Blu-ray disk if you have the burner and media.

The procedure is similar to that described above. I tried a DVD-RW but clearly UDF satndard does not apply to these so I went ahead using a 20x DVD-R burnt at only 8x (I've had VOB transition hiccups in the past with DVD's). I tried it on 2 BD players, both in showrooms and both allegedly AVCHD compatible:

Pana DMP BD-30: Recognises the disk but subsequently reports 'unrecognised format'
Sony BDPS350: Quick loading followed by beautiful 1080i rendering and AC3 sound... for about 15 seconds when both vid + audio started to skip as if it could not read data from the disk fast enough (?)

Quite where the AVCHD nomenclature enters this debate is still a mystery to me as the output from the TsMuxer appears almost identical to the Blu ray image produced by Sony DVDA

As I don't really want a BD player for anything else this solution is verging on the 'too difficult' and for a similar price I could buy a good spec media player avoiding time spent transcoding and enjoy additional functionality. Out of interest, in my reading I came across reports on the AVCHD capability of the PS3:

- Several contributors have successfully played lone-standing .m2ts files from USB media keys on the PS3.
- On guy reports playing a solitary .m2ts file on a PS3 from a (Nero default) ISO9660 DVD burnt as a data DVD.

Can't confirm/deny either report.

Thanks for the input.

[ntscuser]

How long ago was that guide written? Does it refer to an older version of tsMuxeR or a new version? Are you using the same version of tsMuxeR as used in the guide?

Just to confirm, I have burned AVCHD to a DVDRW from an image file and it did play back correctly on a PC. When I tried burning the same content direct from a root folder Imgburn insisted on formatting the DVDRW first. Since this can take a long time I created an image file instead.

EDIT: This is odd? tsMuxeR didn't create a 'Certificates' folder and I didn't add one to Imgburn but after the disc was burned a Certificates folder appeared on the disc anyway!

[HDVguy]

Using the very latest verion of TsMuxer.

My experience of PC optical drives is that they will play pretty much any disc particularly if that disc was burnt on that PC, as an example a PC will read discs that are not finalised. I'm not losing any sleep over the fact Nero would not produce an DVD-RW in UDF 2.5.

We seem to be with Blu Ray where I was 5 years ago when only certain brands of DVD-R would play on my Panasonic 5.1 surround system. There is scope for wasting a lot of time here.

[DVWannaB]

I agree with you HDVguy. Feels like deja Vu all over again. Back in 2001-02-03 or theres about, we went through this same issue with homemade DVDs and which disc to use on what specific player authored with a specific software package. It left for some exciting experiments and lots of wasted time and discs. We are that point again with Blu-ray. It will eventually shake itself out, but for the time being I will sit on the sidelines until that silver bullet solution arrives.

Video industry is a strange bag of incompatibility. I dont there is another industry quite like it anywhere. One would have thought they would set up strict standards as far as what should go with what. For example, Blu-ray can only accept "X" format, must be authored and folder structured in "X" way, burned on only "X" disc and playable on ALL Blu-Ray players. Mind boggling. Dont understand why a Blu-ray player wants an AVCHD file while some other formats.

With all that said, there must be some usable way to get any video file in a format that will play on all Blu_ray players. Wheter you have a native AVCHD, TS (MPEG2), etc. This is driving me crazy.

[nasdravi]

I'd suggest to wait a bit for the upcoming mkv players. Then all kind of current problems will magically disapear

[ntscuser]

I'd suggest to wait a bit for the upcoming mkv players. Then all kind of current problems will magically disapear

Can an mkv player access dual-audio, chapters, menus, etc?

[davie89]

ntscuser the popcorn hour and western digital media player can see the chapters in mkv not sure about dual-audio and nope it can't see menus in mkv.

[jman98]

ntscuser the popcorn hour and western digital media player can see the chapters in mkv not sure about dual-audio and nope it can't see menus in mkv.

The Western Digital player supports multiple audio and subtitle streams in MKV. I've personally verified this. Never tried to make a menu and have no need to, so I can't imagine I'll ever test that.

[Cornucopia]

...EDIT: This is odd? tsMuxeR didn't create a 'Certificates' folder and I didn't add one to Imgburn but after the disc was burned a Certificates folder appeared on the disc anyway!

Maybe you were missing this in the ImgBurn settings:


Scott

[nasdravi]

The only downside with mkv players will be the no menus i suppose....

[ntscuser]

...EDIT: This is odd? tsMuxeR didn't create a 'Certificates' folder and I didn't add one to Imgburn but after the disc was burned a Certificates folder appeared on the disc anyway!

Maybe you were missing this in the ImgBurn settings:


Scott

Or indeed this:

[littlesilly]

If you put a blu-ray compilation on a DVD and try to play it on your Blu-Ray player chances are that it will play. Just for testing purposes, I burned today such a compilation (made from 1440*1080/AVC videos) on a DL-DVD and played it with no problem on my Sony BDP-S480 Blu-Ray player. Everything showed up normally (including menu), as if it was an actual blu-ray disc.